To Light a Candle
by aaron de l'encre
Summary: After God walks away, Joan spontaneously decides to follow him. Time: early April 2005, a day or two after the mock trial. Characters: Joan, Goth God


**Title: To Light A Candle  
Author: aaron de l'encre  
Fandom: JoA / Joan of Arcadia  
Characters: Joan, Goth God  
Rating: K  
Summary: After God walks away, Joan spontaneously decides to follow him.  
Time: early April 2005, a few days after the events of episode 2x19-Trial and Error (spoilers)  
Disclaimer: "Joan of Arcadia" and all related elements are ©2005 Barbara Hall Productions, Inc. and CBS Productions, in association with Sony Pictures Television.  
This is a non-profit fan fiction, and is not associated with the copyright.   
A/N: One-shot, complete. **

_It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. (Chinese proverb) _

Joan walked home from school slowly, shifting her messenger bag to the other shoulder. Her head was bent downward toward the gray sidewalk, which was currently dark brown with the soft rain, and she walked mechanically as if in a trance. The grass to either side of the sidewalk was greener than even the day before, and bushes were sporting tiny new leaves. Somewhere nearby, a cardinal sang to his mate. Joan noticed her environmental changes without caring. What did it matter that spring was arriving in Arcadia when in her heart, winter had returned with a sudden force and would remain perhaps forevermore.

She remembered having heard the phrase, "April is the cruelest month," and she fully agreed. As much as she wanted to hate Bonnie, it really had nothing to do with Bonnie; it was all Adam. Over and over, her mind replayed Adam's confession, how he had so thoughtlessly betrayed her trust and willingly destroyed their relationship. For the millionth time, she wondered if he would have ever admitted anything at all if circumstances had gone differently. 

_I can't give my heart to a phantom  
To a formless shape in the gloom  
There is no warmth from your shadow  
No comfort in our shattered ideals  
Strewn through a night without stars  
No, I can't give my heart to a phantom  
A ghost, a memory of how you used to be _

When the black boots on the wet sidewalk entered her line of sight, Joan stopped just short of bumping into the darkly enigmatic goth kid she knew was God. She glanced into the depth of his eyes which observed her all-knowingly, then she quickly looked away.

"Oh," she said, "look, no offense, but I don't need any assignments right now."

He replied only with a one-shoulder shrug, a smooth nonchalant gesture she interpreted as acquiescence. She resumed walking, and the goth kid fell in step beside her, his hands in his pockets.

After walking half a block in this manner, Joan had to break the silence. "So?" she asked curtly, refering to her unstated question.

"Such a pretty spring day."

She laughed without humor. "You're joking, right? Spring sucks, especially April. Too many clouds, too much rain, no holidays for months, a total gloomfest."

"Gloom indulged becomes despair, optimism a mirthless pretense; anger turns to bitterness, and the world is drained of color."

Joan crinkled her face in irritation. "And this joyful report is supposed to cheer me up?"

"No," he responded with an air of insouciance. "You're looking for despondency, not cheer."

"Dependency?"

"Despondency. Hopelessness."

"Hmph. So even God knows life is hopeless?"

He produced a slight, indulgent smile. "I'm commiserating, Joan, just being a mirror for your mood."

"Well, sorry. I just don't feel all peppermints and rainbows and la-di-dah." 

"As I noted."

"And...is it true?"

"What exactly?"

"That it's hopeless? That this is simply the way your 'perfect system' works, so I should get used to it? Adam can just rip the colors out of my world, and he goes on his merry way while I'm left with gray ruins and shambles?" 

"Well, Adam-- "

"Eww! Stop!" Joan turned to face God, stomping her right foot for emphasis. "Don't even say his name. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to talk about him. Men really are just dogs, and he is leading the pack!"

God stopped with her, inclining his head slightly, his gaze locking with hers. "When pain makes you turn from the light," he said softly, "everything you try to look at is cast in shadow and obscurity. In that somber gloom, you can't see things the way they really are. How can you expect to come to terms with what amounts to a dusky phantasm?"

"I don't want to hear this." Joan sighed. "Look, can't you see I'm not listening to you right now? Maybe talk to me tomorrow or sometime next week; maybe I'll feel like listening by then. But now? Right now, I just wish I'd never been born. Or better yet, that Adam had never been born. And I wish I hadn't been such a trusting idiot to believe in him the way I did while all along, he was--" Emotions played across her face as she struggled not to cry right there on this street corner, so near to home. Kevin or even, God forbid, her mother could drive by at any moment and see her falling apart.

In his unlikely gothic form, God waited patiently, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Patronizing me," she finished her sentence at last. "Lying to me. Do you know how hard it is to have to sit right next to him in Physics each day? Grace would've switched places with me, but no, Lischak wants to suddenly be stubborn about seating arrangements just because it's so close to summer, or maybe she had a fight with her boyfriend or something. And I...I just..." 

"Joan," God began, but she interrupted.

"No," she said with a pleading tone. "Please? Just...not now, okay? I know you care, and I know we'll have to go over it sometime, but just...not yet, okay? Not here. Not now. I just want to go home, get out of this depressing rain, take a hot bath, study for this stupid math test and pretend that none of that ever happened." Her gaze met his as steadily as she could manage, letting her eyes complete her plea.

After a long moment, he spoke. "The choice is yours," he said, with an almost imperceptible nod. "You know where to find me." He gave her one last gentle-yet-intense look, then jaywalked the intersection to walk down the cross-street away from her.

"Thanks," she called after him. "I mean it, really, thanks."

Without turning back around, he raised his hand in the brief gesture of acknowledgment she had come to know so well.

She watched him go as she wiped moisture from her cheeks (which might have been rain or might have been stray tears) and marvelled at how his wildly splayed hair defied the light but steady drizzle while her own hair was drooping and starting to frizz at the ends. She looked up Euclid to her house, and looked back down the cross-street to God's receeding form. Then, without stopping to think about what she was doing, she stepped off the curb and began to follow him.

"You know where to find me," he'd said, but was that really true or just another metaphor? God was always coming and going in her life, in one form or another, but had she ever really seen where he came from or where he went when he left her? Of course not. She was always involved with something or surrounded by other people or late for a class or...well, something. But none of those conditions applied right now. She had the time, she had the curiosity, and now, she also had the opportunity. She smiled to herself as she crossed the street to the opposite side he had taken, vaguely remembering amateur sleuthing scenes from the Nancy Drew books she used to read a long time ago.

Goth God continued down the street through the raindrops, unperturbed.

Some distance behind him and on the opposite side of the street, Joan kept pace with the darkly colorful figure, observing and envying his attitude of confidence and nonchalance. At one point, she thought she heard him whistling a little tune, but was it him or some unseen neighbor nearby? She wondered if it was even possible for God to whistle in this form with his lip piercing. Before she could decide, however, a new sound caught her attention. The soft sound of someone crying.

The lawns along this side were slightly elevated from the level of the street itself, and most of the houses had a couple little steps from the city sidewalk that led to the house walkway. Sitting on the sidewalk stairs in front of a yellow house with scrolled white shutters was a little redhaired girl maybe 6 years old, weeping in the rain.

Joan took another look toward God and mentally shrugged to herself. Her internal debate had lasted only a moment. She approached the redhead and asked, "Hi there. Are you okay?"

The little girl didn't look up, but shook her head emphatically.

Joan set her messenger bag on the wet step next to the child, then sat on it. "My name's Joan. What's yours?"

"S'mantha."

"Samantha? That's a pretty name."

Samantha choked back another sob and looked up at Joan with bright green eyes. "S'not s'pretty as Vanessa!" she declared.

"Vanessa is a pretty name, too," Joan agreed.

"Vanessa s'not pretty no more," said Samantha. "She's all broke and ugly." 

"Oh. Who's Vanessa?"

"My Barbie!" Samantha declared with a tone indicating that Joan should have known that. She pointed at the muddy doll at her feet.

Joan reached for the fashion doll which had very long hair (apparently platinum blonde) and some retro 60's mini-dress with hot pink stripes. One of the matching hot pink go-go boots was missing, and as Joan picked up the doll, one of the arms fell off causing Samantha to begin a fresh round of tears and sobs.

"Oh hey, don't cry," Joan said. "Vanessa is still pretty. She's just..." She tried to hold the doll away from her to avoid getting mud on herself. "She's just been at the spa and had a mudbath. That's what all the supermodels do."

Samantha's eyes widened slightly with growing interest.

"Yeah," Joan answered the unspoken question, "that's what they do at spas, and it's very expensive and luxurious. They get covered in mud and then they get a massage and put cucumber slices over their eyes."

"Why?"

"Um...well, I guess it feels good. And when they get done, they take a shower and clean off all the mud, and they feel even more pretty than before."

"Because the mud is gone?"

"Yeah, I think that might be it."

"What about her arm?"

"Piece of cake." Joan lifted the slender doll-arm, wiped off a bit of mud, then pressed the joint firmly against the doll's shoulder. After a bit of pressure and a slight twist, the arm popped into place.

"Wow!" Samantha exclaimed. "I tried to do that, but it didn't go!"

"Well, now her arm is fine. And when you give Vanessa a bath, she'll be as good as new. And prettier than ever."

Samantha accepted the mended doll from Joan's muddy hands. "Thanks," she said, then released a deep, plaintive sigh.

"What's wrong?" Joan asked.

"I wish you could fix Kathy, too."

"Well, maybe I could..." Joan glanced around for another doll, didn't see one, then she remembered to look up the street for God, but didn't see him either. She smirked to herself at the lost opportunity. Maybe some other day. She reached down to the side of the stairs and cleaned her hands against the wet grass, then turned her attention back to the little redhead. "Did Kathy go to the spa, too?"

"Kathy's not a doll," said Samantha. "She's my best friend, but not no more." 

"Why not any more?"

Samantha's lower lip trembled. "She was mean. I thought she was my friend, but she was mean."

"Do you want to tell me about it? I'm a good listener."

Samantha nodded and began telling her story between sniffles. "Kathy wanted Vanessa, and I said no because Mom always says 'don't give your toys away...'" 

The last phrase was clearly delivered as an imitation of Samantha's mother, and Joan couldn't help but smile.

"...so I said no and Kathy got mad."

"What did she do?"

"She stole Vanessa when I couldn't see, and then she pulled her arm off and got her all dirty and threw her in the street!"

Joan nodded. "Wow, yeah, that is mean."

"I thought she was my friend. I thought she liked me. She knows I love Vanessa. And I was never mean to her!" Samantha's tears threatened to burst out again. 

"Oh, it's okay, Samantha, it's okay. After she has a bath, Vanessa will be pretty again, and she has her arm back, good as new."

"I know." The redhead sniffled. "Vanessa is okay. But what about Kathy? When I see her, all I think now is how mean she was. How can I play with her no more? She hurt me real bad. She was so mean!" Samantha looked up at Joan, her green eyes pleading. "What if she gets mean again?"

Joan looked into those young eyes and saw Samantha's innocent trust, trust that this big girl who fixed her precious doll would also have a solution for her larger dilemma, how to give that trust again to someone who had betrayed it. A knot tightened in Joan's throat as she suddenly understood why she had followed God down this street.

Joan wrapped an arm around the little girl's shoulders. In her calmest voice, she said, "I don't know, Samantha. I wish I had the answer to that, but I just don't know. I think it's important to try to remember that even when someone you trusted treats you badly, it doesn't mean that you're bad, and it doesn't mean the end of the world, either. You're still loved. A lot. Do you understand that?"

Samantha nodded cautiously, looking at the doll in her hands.

Joan continued. "I know it hurts. And I know it's hard to imagine there's any goodness in something like this, but there is. Somewhere, it's in there, and that's something you can know in your heart, and it's...it's part of who you are."

Ignoring the mud smears, Samantha stroked the platinum nylon hair in a tender gesture. "Do you understand that, Vanessa?" she asked the doll in imitation of Joan. "You're loved a lot and it's in your heart." After a moment's pause, she looked up at Joan again, this time with a smile. "Vanessa says okay." 

Joan smiled with her and gave Samantha's shoulders a gentle farewell squeeze. "I have to go now." She stood and lifted her messenger bag.

Samantha stood also, still smiling. "Me too," she said, "Vanessa needs a bath. Bye."

"Bye," Joan called as she began walking in the direction of home.

Joan had reached the corner intersection when she heard a cardinal again. Was it a different bird or maybe the same one? She glanced upward thinking she might see it and had to shade her eyes against the bright sunlight. She didn't remember noticing when the rain had stopped, but the clouds had broken up and the sky had many cheerful blue patches.

_Your kiss left a painful tatoo on my heart  
I need to find my life again  
I need to breathe fresh air again  
It hurts so much to miss you  
Even more to start over again  
But I will, oh I will, yes I will _

As she turned the corner onto Euclid and could see her home up ahead, the clouds inside her also parted, and she felt a sudden inner warmth. "There's goodness in it somewhere, whether I can see it yet or not," she murmured almost soundlessly. "No matter what, I am loved, and it's in my heart." For the first time since the mock trial, Joan felt a flutter of hope for a future. 

The cardinal sang his song again in the treetops above her. 

**END **  



End file.
